Day 5. Udwada - Bandra - Churchgate.

Ok, checked the map. There’s nothing between here and there. So, I write this after the last significant thing is done, with cocks crowing in the background in the very tranquil Udwada morning Udwada is a village about 8 KM of NH8 towards the southern Gujarat coast line. Its near Daman (which would be a nice place to check out if I wasn’t now strapped for time - I have a class to teach in Mumbai at 2). Daman is this old small portugese town used to be part of the portugese empire, now its just a little Union Territory surrounded on all sides by Gujarat – a Dry State. Making Daman’s main and most interesting feature … you guessed, its booze. But, back to Udwada. Udwada is where one of the oldest Parsi Atash Behram’s exist. That’s firetemples to you heathen non believers ;-) . This is a flame that was brought over from Iran when Zorastrian’s first came over by Sea in the 13th Century. This is the same flame that’s burning today, tended around the clock by Priests who have dedicated their entire lives to doing just that.

The three or four streets around the Atash Behram are completely old school “parsi maholla’s with Agasi’s” (says dad). Its quite pretty, relaxed, and completely Bawa. There are a lot of signs around the Atash Behram that say this prohibited, that prohibited, I thought it was rather amusing. The sad bit is there are a lot of old bungalows and plots that are just over grown with weeds. The whole town is a heritage site, and I just think that the families of the people who must have lived in those homes have either just forgotten and don’t care, or don’t exist anymore. Its like it’s a direct physical representation of an entire ethnic group heading for extinction.

Then we visited the Fire Temple, paid our respects. Dad was really happy that he’s now done this in his lifetime (He’s always wanted to… ) we said our prayers, I wore a Sudro and Kusti (traditional Zorastian religious under gaments) and it was quite a ‘welcome back to the fold’ moment for me. That, done, the Sudro Kusti is safely back in dad’s suitcase, and we’re on to more important things, like… A GOOD PARSI BREAKFAST. At the Hotel, Fried eggs, Kheema, Toast (really nice bread!) Jam, Butter and HOT HOT HOT tea with 6 cups lovely lili-chai in the pot (6, because everytime you poured 1 you lost two all over the table due to the high tech nature of the spout. There was much involvment between me, dad and the pot of tea to see if there was anyway we could avoid this needless sacrifice).

Breakfast safely put away, and tea consumed, and now we’re on the road for the only leg which is a timed segment qualifier.

We’re at the railway crossing outside Udwada where we’re watching a freight train go by. Dad is regaling me with a story of Mr. Chibber. Who told him of the time he got off his train at some platform in the middle of nowhere, India, and took a nap on the bench. The punch line being “ I opened my eyes, and there was a freight train on my platform!”

Though while the road is good, NH8 is pretty hectic traffic wise from here on in. But Dad’s driving, and its ok, apart from the few outbursts at Sumo’s that get up our butt demanding to be let past when there’s no where for us to move. Swines. Doesn’t help that after they’ve sufficiently annoyed us, Dad decides to teach them a lesson by not letting them past when we can. If you’re driving an 800, don’t tangle with the big boys. Period. Oh boy. We’re going to get a lot of stupid Mumbaikar long distance traffic now, and I know they’re all going to be ass-wipes. The road itself from Udwada to about 90km out of Bombay was fantastic. And the drive through the western ghats was breathtaking. Clouds, Rain (our first this whole trip), and general scenic beauty all around. Its hard to believe that such scenic beauty lies only a few hours outside the Black Smoke. But then the road got BAAAAAAD. I mean ridiculously bad. We went through potholes the size of truck tires. This was also a section of the road on which we saw the most number of overturned trucks… oof.

Its 9:am, we get on to the road by 9:10, and we’re off to Bandra where I have to TEACH at 2. This is the only day we’re doing a morning drive, as you may have noticed, the general routine has been wake up and breakfast around 7-8. 8-11. Sightsee around the locality. 11 – 11:30 hit the road, and next rest stop by 7:00 in the evening. So 6 hours of driving the route each day. 4 Days, 24 hours, and now we’ve got a final 4 to go. Average speed 60-70Km/h overall. So that, is a leisurely pace. If for some magnanimous reason, your parents are gifting you a Skoda Octavia instead, you’ll have a lot more sighseeing time, a lot less driving time, cause you’d be doing 120 easy on a lot of these stretches.

We paid three tolls on this section. Only one was worth it. We tried to ask for our money back at the second and third. Surprisingly, once we hit Borivalli, the flyovers on the western expressway took us right into bandra in style.

Oh boy. Better spend the next 20 minutes coming up with a course plan for today.

Got into Bandra, at exactly 1;15 had a quick lunch with Manek. Then Dad and I parted ways for the first time on this trip. I went to teach at MET. Got that out of the way, and then – since I was in Mumbai I had to see a Bollywood sight, so went and hung out with a starlet just so that I could say I’d done it all! ;-) She happens to be my closest friend in this city as well, so hey. Watched Zodiac with her and have now caught a MERU cab (I’m treating myself) for the final leg to Churchgate. I guess this is it. End of the road trip the second I step into court view!

Right. Off I go. Final seg pics will be on line shortly, and once I figure out how to get bloody Picassa and Blogger to work together properly (Google, do something about this, because it AIN’T intuitive, and that’s surprising coming from you guys! –Snook cocked, pra. ;-) )

And my cell phone is starting to beep and buzz. Which means we’ve got signal, and Bombay can’t be far away. I’ll reedit parts of the blog to put in distances and map references and driving times later. Also insert some select pictures from the trip at appropriate places in this. But, this is the last entry on this little blog! Unless I do another ‘roadtripwithdad’. Which, hey, may just happen! All it’ll take is for him to gift mom a car!